Nick of Time

by Ted Bell

  “I smell zose cabbages!” von Krieg thundered, though his first officer was standing immediately behind him. His number one on this voyage was a short, jumpy little man named Lieutenant Willy Steiner.

  It was his job to be two steps aft of von Krieg and he had been the first officer to keep the job for more than six months. Was it because he was the only man who could tolerate the captain’s constant abuse? Or, as gossip had it, because “Little Willy,” as von Krieg called him, had powerful friends in Berlin? There was even a shipboard rumor, so far limited to the officers’ mess, that Willy was an SS officer personally sent by Hitler to keep an eye on the sometimes explosive von Krieg.

  It was no secret to anyone aboard U-33 that her captain was something of a loose cannon. A dangerous thing aboard any vessel. But especially aboard an experimental submarine on a highly secret mission that might well determine the outcome of the war.

  Baron Wolfgang von Krieg, or “Wolfie,” as he was known in civilian life, was the only son of one of Germany’s richest and most powerful men, Count Helmut von Krieg. Tall, powerfully built, and quite handsome when his features weren’t clouded with drink, Wolfie had been a notorious character in Berlin society. With his striking blue eyes and blond, almost white hair cut close to the skull, he had cut quite a dashing figure in ballrooms in every corner of the Fatherland.

  Sent to university at Oxford against his wishes by his half-English mother, the rebellious, arrogant boy had been shunned at school and had developed a great hatred for English people. A hate that was almost as strong as his love of French wine. A brilliant student, he’d nonetheless been accused of attacking a college Don in a drunken rage and been sent home to Germany in disgrace. The story that followed him home to Berlin was that he’d sliced off the Magdalen Don’s ear with a fencing foil.

  The von Kriegs had built Germany’s most powerful arms and munitions empire. Their loyalty and support of Hitler’s Third Reich was critical to the Führer’s plan to bend all of Europe to his will. The von Krieg factories, deep in the Ruhr Valley, were operating twenty-four hours a day producing everything from bombs for the Luftwaffe air corps to long-range 88-millimeter cannons for the army. As Germany took up the weapons of a world war, it was with the powerful arms of von Krieg.

  Wolfie knew that, and had taken every advantage of it to advance his naval career. His most glittering prize thus far had been the command of U-33.

  “Why do I smell cabbages, Willy?” von Krieg asked, more pleasantly now, his way of keeping his assistant slightly off guard.

  “It’s Monday night, mein Kapitän, ” Willy said.

  “I know that, Willy,” he said, his eye still glued to the eyepiece. “And what difference does that make?”

  “None, sir, of course, except that Monday night is cabbage night,” Willy said mildly.

  He could almost feel von Krieg go rigid with anger at his scope. He had noticed that it didn’t take a great deal to get this reaction from his captain. The captain had a hair-trigger temper and Willy often noted his captain’s outbursts in the little black book he kept locked in a safe in his tiny cabin. A black book he kept for Hitler’s eyes only, at his leader’s orders.

  “U-33’s mission is critical to me personally, and I don’t want this headstrong young captain to botch it, do you understand?” Those had been the Führer’s parting words to Willy, and, not being suicidal, he took them to heart.

  “It vas cabbage night, Little Willy, until I gave strict orders that there would be no more cabbage nights! You know how I despise cabbages! That is why I forbid anyone to cook this peasant food on my ship! Do you forget my orders so easily?”

  “Of course not, mein Kapitän, but tonight is also Chief Torpedoman Ober’s birthday and the cook thought that—”

  “You say the cook thought? Surely I misunderstand you. Are you trying to tell me that our cook can think? For he surely cannot cook!”von Krieg hissed. “Listen carefully to me, Willy. I will say this only once.”

  Von Krieg made a fierce effort to control his violent temper. “I want you to go to the aft torpedo room.”

  “Aft torpedo room, mein Kapitän.”

  “Ja, the aft torpedo room. And I want you to arrest Torpedoman Ober.”

  “Arrest him, mein Kapitän ?”

  “Am I speaking too softly, Lieutenant?” Von Krieg had still not removed his eye from the periscope lens. “Yes! I said arrest him, you idiot, for disobeying a direct order!”

  “Jawohl, Kapitän von Krieg!”

  “Arrest him. And then I want this impudent torpedoman loaded into aft torpedo tube Number Four,” von Krieg said.

  “The torpedoman into the torpedo tube, mein Kapitän?” Willy shook his head in wonder. His captain was entering uncharted waters of madness. Hitler was right. This man needed watching.

  “Into the tube, Willy. Into the tube! And then I want you to offer Torpedoman Ober best birthday wishes from Kapitän Wolfgang von Krieg, do you follow? Yes? Then seal the tube and prepare it for firing. Do I make myself perfectly clear, Willy?”

  “Seal the man in the torpedo tube?” Willy asked, aghast. He’d done some terrible things himself, but such cruelty to an innocent man was too much even for him. “Kapitän, please! You must understand that it was not Torpedoman Ober who—”

  “Willy!” von Krieg shouted and Willy knew there was no point in continuing.

  “Jawohl, mein herr! It shall be done immediately!” Willy saluted the captain before leaving the control room, but von Krieg failed to notice. His periscope had just picked up something interesting at Castle Hawke. A room of some sort, atop the tower, had been ablaze with light all evening. And now those lights were beginning to go out.

  And, at the base of the cliff below the castle, a powerful shaft of white light was visible, pouring through what appeared to be a thin seam in the rock. Was there some kind of secret inlet there? Something he wouldn’t have noticed by day? An entrance to a hidden lagoon, perhaps?

  “Achtung!” von Krieg shouted, though there was no need for shouting in the tiny control room. “Bearing zero-five-zero, heading left nine-two-five! Mark! All engines ahead flank speed!”

  “All ahead flank, mein Kapitän !”

  “So, Hawke, you English swine,” von Krieg chuckled to himself, his eye pressed up against the lens of his periscope, “I believe perhaps I have finally discovered your little secret spy nest! Ja, the secret back door of Hawke Castle itself!” He smiled at his little joke. “So this is how the great Hawke flies in and out of his lair unseen!”

  The sub lurched forward as the powerful Crossfire engines, four massive screws and the hydro-propulsion impellers did their job in perfect tandem.

  “And Der Wolf will be waiting by the door for your next appearance, my lord,” he added, chuckling to himself.

  Little Willy had returned to the control room from his distasteful mission at the stern of the ship and now stood rigidly at attention. “Heil Hitler!” Willy saluted.

  “Heil Hitler,” von Krieg returned half-heartedly, eyes still riveted to the scope. “Tube Four is loaded as I ordered, Willy?”

  “Aft tube Number Four loaded and armed for firing, sir,” Willy said, morosely. The Führer would not be pleased to learn that U-33’s torpedo tubes were being used, not against Germany’s enemies, but to send an innocent German sailor to an unspeakably horrifying death.

  “Fire!” Krieg shouted.

  A crewman pushed the red button on the fire control panel. They heard a muffled roar from the rear of the ship. “Four away, Kapitän !” the crewman said, as the men around him stared in stunned silence. Every man in the control room knew it could have been anyone of them lying terrified in tube Four, waiting to be ejected with terrible force beneath the sea. With this mad captain at their helm, this promised to be a long and dangerous cruise.

  “Happy birthday, Torpedoman Ober,” von Krieg sang softly to himself at the periscope. “Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to the English fishies, and the meal they make of
you!” Chuckling, he pressed his eye again to the scope, trying to peer through the sea mists that now shrouded Castle Hawke. “And as for you, Lord Hawke…you will surely be next to feel the terrible wrath of Der Wolf !”

  At that moment, in the crosshairs of his periscope, von Krieg was transfixed on this, his first glimmer of light and hope. The light escaping from the base of Hawke Castle meant that his suspicions had been correct. There was some kind of passage there, even if it was not visible by daylight.

  “Well, well, Lord Hawke, it seems you’ve finally left the light on by the back door,” he said to himself. “Yes, I think you’ve finally made a little error. And guess who is here to make sure you pay dearly for it, ja ?”

  CHAPTER XIX

  Tempus et Locus

  · 6 June 1939 ·

  HAWKE CASTLE

  Ah, there it is!” Hobbes exclaimed.

  “There what is, Hobbes?” Hawke asked.

  “Sorry, m’lord. I was referring to the Tempus Machina. I’ve managed to get the machine open. Quite interesting, actually.”

  “Open! I daresay, Hobbes, really!” Hawke said, crossing to the table in a bounding stride. The golden ball now lay in two halves on the velvet pillow, like two halves of a large golden orange. “I mean to say, the Tempus Machina, open at last, and all you can manage is ‘Ah, there it is’? Really, Hobbes! You do try one’s patience.”

  “It separates along the equator, with a reverse clockwise twist which threw me for a few moments. Sorry, sir. Although, you’ll remember, Leonardo did many things backward. His mirror-writing, of course. As you may know, Leonardo da Vinci kept all of his journals written backward, so anyone attempting to read them could only do so by holding them before a mirror. Ha! The man wrote backward as easily as mere mortals write forward.”

  No one was really listening to Hobbes’s history lesson. They were all much too captivated by the glittering interior of the four-hundred-year-old machine. Nick had no idea what he’d been expecting to find inside the machine—whirling atoms, perhaps. Actually, the device resembled an exquisite piece of jewelry. Delicate scrolled writing surrounded an engraving of the sun and its nine planets on one half, and there was a pyramid with what appeared to be Greek symbols on the other.

  “I say, Hobbes, there seems to be some of your backward writing here, surrounding the figure of the solar system. Have a look, will you?”

  “Nick,” Hobbes said with some excitement in his voice, “hand me the mirror you’ll find in that top drawer, please.”

  “Latin, I assume, Hobbes,” Hawke said, as Hobbes held the mirror to the beautiful machine. “What does it say, Hobbes? Blurt it out, man! You do push one to the limit at times.”

  Nick looked at the backward writing reflected in the small mirror.

  Nunc Mihi

  Mox Huius

  Sed Postea Nescio Cuius

  “Now Mine,Then Theirs, But ForeverAfter I Know Not Whose. ” Hobbes intoned the words, sounding like the voice of antiquity itself. “Well, we know whose, don’t we? Leonardo’s Tempus Machina now belongs to young Nicholas McIver!”

  Nick felt himself flushed with excitement, looking now at a number of jewels set in the golden faces of each half, like buttons. Unlike the scholarly Hobbes, Nick didn’t know a lot of Latin. It was, in fact, his weakest subject at school, but he knew that the engraved words “Tempus” on one half, and “Locus” on the other stood for “Time” and “Place.”

  “Now, the ‘Tempus’ half seems to be a perpetual calendar,” Hobbes said. “And, as you can see, this dial is showing today’s date and time, exactly. Quite amazing, isn’t it? Ticking along for four hundred years! Now, I imagine if I press this gemstone—an emerald, I believe—the calendar will advance—”

  He pushed the emerald, and indeed the minutes, hours, and days started racing by, gaining speed until they were nothing but a blur. Nick noticed that, eerily, the machine made no sound at all.

  “Hobbes, please be careful! Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” Hawke said, peering over Hobbes’s shoulder and clearly alarmed as time raced ahead on the machine.

  “Fairly elementary, your lordship,” Hobbes replied, nonplussed. “The genius of Leonardo, if you will. Ah, now that we’ve got time moving, I wonder how in the world we get it to stop!”

  “Good lord, Hobbes! You’re jesting, of course!” Hawke said. “You don’t know how to stop it!”

  “This stone here,” Hobbes said calmly, “a ruby, I believe, should stop the acceleration. A brake, you’d call it in an automobile. Let’s see if I’m right, shall we?”

  Hobbes pushed the tiny ruby and immediately the spinning days and hours began to slow until they could be read again, and then they stopped. Nick would never forget the date where the machine stopped.

  1 April 2079

  It took his breath away. The machine had sped ahead a hundred and forty years into the future in the very blink of an eye!

  “I say!” was all Lord Hawke could muster. “I daresay I’d feel a great deal more comfortable if you’d just return us to today, Hobbes. Really, let’s not rush headlong into this, shall we? Can you get us back to today’s date?”

  “Certainly, sir,” Hobbes replied. “Although the machine can not possibly take us anywhere without the two halves being rejoined, so I shouldn’t concern yourself too much about experimenting with it. I would imagine this middle stone is the reset button. “Let’s find out, shall we?”

  Hawke let out a sigh when Hobbes pushed the middle jewel, a diamond, and the days began to spin slowly backward to a stop. They all noticed with great relief that the machine had stopped where it had started, on today’s date. Nick looked at his watch. Same exact time as was showing on the machine. To the second!

  “I must say, Hobbes, guessing the functions of the various gems is rather a neat trick.”

  “Not really, sir.” Hobbes smiled. “Seventy-two percent of the civilized societies on earth have designated the colors green for ‘go’ and red for ‘stop.’ Leonardo, the original time traveler,

  would surely have discovered that fact in his travels to the future. I imagine he chose the red ruby for stop and the green emerald for go as his way of saying to anyone coming into possession of the instrument, ‘You see, I’ve been to the future.’ ”

  “A bit of an inside cosmic joke is what you’re saying, Hobbes?”

  “Precisely, sir.”

  “And this bottom half,” Nick said, “it sets the geographic locations?”

  Hobbes studied this lower half for a few moments.

  “Indeed! One must assume that this dial here is a global positioning indicator. Notice it uses standard latitudinal and longitudinal numerals. Now, if I’m correct, the figures here should change if I walk over to the window, shouldn’t they?”

  Hobbes carried the device over to the window, studying it intently as he walked. “Yes,” he exclaimed, “the machine is tracking with me as I walk, even this minute distance across the face of the planet! Look here, here is my new position!” Hawke and Nick practically ran to him to see for themselves.

  “Astounding, Hobbes!” Lord Hawke said. “So this dial is the machine’s current location, correct? Where we are standing now?”

  “Precisely, my lord. That is to say, precise within a radius of, oh, a few feet. Maybe less, considering how it tracked my position as I walked to the window. I really don’t know what the margin of error is, sir. Nick, would you plot Hawke Castle’s position on the maritime chart you’ll find in that drawer, please?”

  Nick found the chart and quickly located Hawke Point. “All right, Commander, zero-two degrees twenty-four minutes longitude by forty-nine degrees twenty-five minutes north latitude.”

  “And the machine’s reading, Hobbes?”

  “Precisely the same, your lordship!”

  “By Jove, Hobbes! You’ve cracked it!”

  “I endeavor to give satisfaction, m’lord.”

  “Is that it, then, Hobbes? Can we at long last go fin
d that scoundrel Blood?”

  “One final thing, m’lord,” Hobbes said, picking up one half of the globe in each hand. “Please remember. You enter the desired time of arrival in Tempus. And the desired destination in Locus. Then one must screw the two hemispheres together again to actually activate the machine.”

  “Time and space rejoined is what you’re saying, Hobbes.”

  “Precisely, my lord. And, sir, before you depart, might I mention the historical protection issue? Not that you need reminding, m’lord.”

  “Historical protection issue, Hobbes?” Hawke asked, momentarily puzzled. “Ah, of course! Splendid point, Hobbes!”

  He turned to Nick and Gunner, a deadly serious expression in his eyes. “We are about to venture into the past, gentlemen. In so doing, we incur an enormous responsibility to history. It is our obligation, you see, nay, our sacred duty to protect the flow, and to abide by the Law of Unintended Consequences.”

  “Protect the flow?” Nick asked. Hobbes smiled at Nick.

  “By going back in time, you have it in your power to change the whole course of human history, Nick. This could have unforeseen and disastrous effects on mankind if the time traveler does anything to dramatically alter the precious flow of history.”

  “We can still help the captain, can’t we?” Gunner asked.

  “A relatively minor historic event,” Hobbes replied. “Yes, you can help Captain McIver, Gunner. I’m talking about interfering in major events. The lives and deaths of significant historical figures, for instance. Do I have your solemn vow you will avoid this at all costs?” Hobbes asked his two fellow travelers.

  Nick and Gunner nodded in silent agreement.

  “Right! Our first stop, then, Hobbes?”

  “The shanty, sir, any time prior to Nick’s six o’clock appointment this evening, sir. I’ve taken the liberty of entering the coordinates for the Old North Wharf. You should arrive within or near the shanty. Shall I enter five-fifty to be on the safe side, sir?”

  “Excellent! And Captain McIver’s frigate?”